The author has not done enough research into Bitcoin to make a well-informed judgment. Of his arguments, one of them is very strong: governments will not sit still for anything that undermines their economic power. Topics related to his other three claims have been discussed at great length and detail by Bitcoiners. There is no inherent connection between the use of Bitcoins and a gold standard - nobody is trying to persuade world governments to use bitcoin as a backing for the value of their fiat currencies. Bitcoin is an alternative. Security issues relating to cryptograhic protocols and implementation are a risk, but not as catastrophic as he suggests; Bitcoin has already dealt with a number of security problems successfully. As for Bitcoin not working offline, I am unconcerned - Paypal doesn't work offline, but that hasn't doomed it to failure, and for that matter, a number of "physical bitcoin" ideas have been worked out.
All that said, the argument "governments will make it criminal" has been my perspective for a long time, and why I don't use bitcoin personally. Conceptually, bitcoin is brilliant and revolutionary, but I'm terrified of my government and figure its only a matter of time before bitcoin users are all charged with some absurd trumped-up conspiracy/racketeering violations.
I'd like to add, that it's relatively easy to make a bitcoin service, that will work offline via sms, though it won't be a standalone client.
If someone will make such service, he will be able to compete with M-Pesa: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa (they had 2 million transactions/day in 2009)
In case you were not yet convinced this article was a bunch of sensationalist bullshit, consider "3. A single mathematical or other error in the cryptosystem would cause instant, unresolvable, worldwide hyperinflation"
I don't want it to kill dollars. I just want it to kill paypal. I've already got a system where one tiny error will cause me to have all my money frozen. I'll take absolutely anything that's even slightly better. Bitcoin is looking pretty good for that right now.
If some fiat currencies happened to get called out by an alternative that can't be inflated in order to hand out banker bonuses, that's just lagniappe.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 28.8 ms ] threadAll that said, the argument "governments will make it criminal" has been my perspective for a long time, and why I don't use bitcoin personally. Conceptually, bitcoin is brilliant and revolutionary, but I'm terrified of my government and figure its only a matter of time before bitcoin users are all charged with some absurd trumped-up conspiracy/racketeering violations.
If someone will make such service, he will be able to compete with M-Pesa: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M-Pesa (they had 2 million transactions/day in 2009)
If some fiat currencies happened to get called out by an alternative that can't be inflated in order to hand out banker bonuses, that's just lagniappe.